Linux

I feel like it isn't really specific to arch, every distro has a following, but some are more "passionate" about it than others. I think arch, NixOS, and gentoo are the most notable.

I'm quite experienced in Linux but I wouldn't use either. Arch is great if you like to tinker, Ubuntu sucks for the not so libre approach , corporate ties, telemetry etc. I distrohopped before but today I just install my debian based distro and shit works.. Ubuntu I've installed twice before when I was new to Linux, and have had a major issues every time due to official updates that broke internet drivers and other things, that's a fun one when you only have one PC . Not to mention its so bloated that shitty computers that I like to thinker with it have a hard time catching up. The arch thing is also mostly a kind of meme, targeting the more unbearable nerds. People I hated when I was a noob (they will let you know you are) But they are found everywhere and in general I don't think there's more of those people in arch community than anywhere else. It's more of a stab at elitism than arch specifically.

I see a point in arch but zero in ubuntu.

Normal people who use Arch don't bring it up much, because they're all sick of the memes and are really, REALLY tired of immediately being called rude elitist neckbeard cultists every time they mention it.

The Ubuntu hate is because Canonical has a long history of making weird, controversial decisions that split the Linux community for no good reason.

Arch is amazing for what it is, hence the love. It’s what you make of it; by default there’s nothing and you design your own system from scratch. This leads to a very passionate and enthusiastic community who do great work for one another, for everybody’s benefit. Anything under the sun can be found in the AUR, the distro repos are fresh and reliable, and every issue that arises has a hundred people documenting the fix before it’s patched.

Ubuntu has a bad reputation for inconsistency, privacy invasive choices, etc. I don’t think all the hate is deserved, as they corrected course after the Amazon search fiasco, but I still won’t use it because of Snaps. They have a proprietary backend, so even if I wanted to put up with their other strange design decisions I can’t unless I wanted closed source repos. That goes against my whole philosophy and reasoning for being on Linux to begin with, and many feel the same.

When I got fed up with windows 8.1 (and windows update bricked it), I first used ubuntu. How well or not it worked depended on the version. In version 19 it got some ugly white message boxes. I searched for how to change their color and found an angry dev saying no you cant change that. This was the final bullshit. Then I switched to arch, which lets me choose how my stuff looks and doesn't have the whole 3/4 versions are buggy thing. It works and ubuntu does not.

I just think it's neat.

vocal peope on social media ≠ everyone

a reputation more than 10 years out of date

It's funny because I see the same cult behavior, but for Fedora. I've never understood the point of this distribution that has never worked well for me.

I'm on Manjaro by the way, because I love everything about Arch except the release style.

Arch Being cult like is stereotypical. Far from reality.

Because the logo looks cool

arch is slop for normies pretending to be chads, real chads use gentoo and openbsd

Because Arch requires human sacrifice.

I use Ubuntu professionally and Arch at home

Anything that's not Windows is my preference.

I love arch because I know what's in it and how to fix it and what to expect, the community is mostly very nice and open to help

AUR is great and using pacman feels lovely

I also care about learning and understanding the system I'm using beyond just using a GUI that does everything for me

Ubuntu is not bad it's probably one of the most used distros by far

Linux motto is: Use what you like and customize it how you like because there is no company forcing you to do things their way

People that got into Linux when most of the main distributions were easier to install than windows in most cases. Some people wanted to show off that they can install a Linux like it was when we did it back in the 90s for some reason I still don't understand till this day. I do like their wiki though. Works great for debian as well as arch.

Well, Ubuntu uses Snap, which is a rather poor packaging solution that basically no other distro has adopted. By default it's a little bloated, it's made some controversial decisions (rust coreutils), and other distros just do what Ubuntu does better (like Mint)

The same reason people brag about working 80 hour weeks.

How user friendly is the installation process? I've never tried, so I don't know. I'm curious now; just based on how people talk about it, I always perceived it as as distro that requires a lot of technical knowledge to use like Gentoo, which I unsuccessfully tried to install way back in 2010. I'm more knowledgeable and patient these days, so I may be able to work with arch.

Linux is supposed to be hard and for nerds. Arch is the hardest and most for nerds, and ubuntu is the least. At least that's what I've seen.

I just think its good.

The way I see it, you can have an OS that breaks less often and is hard to fix, or an OS that breaks a little more often that is easy to fix. I choose the latter. 99/100 times, when something breaks with an update, it's on the front page of archlinux.org with a fix.

The problems I've faced with other distros or windows is the solution is often "reinstall, lol", which is like a 3 hour session of nails on a chalkboard for me.

About 10 years ago it was The Distro for first time linux users to prove they were a True Linux Enjoyer. Think a bunch of channers bragging about how they are the true linux master race because they edited a grub config.

Before Arch that role belonged to Gentoo. Since then that role has transitioned to NixOS who aren't nearly as toxic but still culty. "Way of the future" etc.

All three of have high bars of entry so everyone has to take pride in the effort they put in to learn how to install their distro. Like getting hazed into a frat except you actually learn something.

The Ubuntu hatred is completely unrelated. That has to do with them being a corporate distro that keep making bad design decisions. And their ubiquity means everyone has to deal with their bad decisions. (snap bad)

Because it's awesome. Join us... join us... join us...

Arch has a very in-depth wiki that's the go-to resource for a lot of Linux users, and it offers a community-driven way to have access to literally anything that's ever landed on Linux ever through the AUR. It's also nice to have an OS that you never have to reinstall (assuming all things go well).

Why that turned into such a cult-meme is anyone's guess though.

Is it really? I've always understood the cult around it as a joke.

But seriously, RTFM.

I don't really have a concise answer, but allow me to ramble from personal experience for a bit:

I'm a sysadmin that was VERY heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. It was all I worked with professionally and really all I had ever used personally as well. I grew up with Windows 3.1 and just kept on from there, although I did mess with Linux from time to time.

Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows in many well-documented ways. From small things like not letting you customize the Start menu and task bar, to things like microstuttering from all the data it's trying to load over the web, to the ads it keeps trying to shove into various corners. A million little splinters that add up over time. Still, I considered myself a power user, someone able to make registry tweaks and PowerShell scripts to suit my needs.

Arch isn't particularly difficult for anyone who is comfortable with OSes and has excellent documentation. After installation it is extremely minimal, coming with a relatively bare set of applications to keep it functioning. Using the documentation to make small decisions for yourself like which photo viewer or paint app to install feels empowering. Having all those splinters from Windows disappear at once and be replaced with a system that feels both personal and trustworthy does, in a weird way, kind of border on an almost religious experience. You can laugh, but these are the tools that a lot of us live our daily lives on, for both work and play. Removing a bloated corporation from that chain of trust does feel liberating.

As to why particularly Arch? I think it's just that level of control. I admit it's not for everyone, but again, if you're at least somewhat technically inclined, I absolutely believe it can be a great first distro, especially for learning. Ubuntu has made some bad decisions recently, but even before that, I always found myself tinkering with every install until it became some sort of Franken-Debian monster. And I like pacman way better than apt, fight me, nerds.

I like arch because:

• it is rolling release and I like having up to date software and not having to deal with distro upgrades breaking things
• it is community run and not beholden to a company
• packages are mostly unmodified from their upstream
• the wiki and forums are the best of any distro

I can't speak to Arch but I use Ubuntu every day. I hate on Ubuntu because I use it every day. They make terrible choices. They've got common, serious issues people have reported at least as far back as 2009 with no acknowledgement or plan to address. I'm on LTS and they push through multiple reboot requiring sets of updates a week, heedless of the impacts.

I don't feel like learning a totally new environment so I'll be switching my main computer to Mint whenever I get the time. So I can deal with someone else's annoying decisions for a while.

I don't know about everyone else, but the last couple of years has had the most unstable Ubuntu releases, with the most unrecoverable releases when issues happen.

I've since moved to Fedora for desktop and straight Debian for server.